


White Wedding

by womenseemwicked



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Genderqueer Character, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage, US Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage, Weddings, but like it's the '90s here so don't expect real modern terms or anything, like Billy's about as enlightened about his gender identity as I was in high school yo, pre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womenseemwicked/pseuds/womenseemwicked
Summary: Billy and Steve want to be together forever. In sickness and in health. For rich or for poor. Come death or taxes or maybe someday adoption.In the 1990s, there's only one way they can make that official.





	White Wedding

**Author's Note:**

> Taiwan became the first nation in Asia to legalize gay marriage like, _days_ ago so to, uh, celebrate, I wrote a thing. because i have a lot of fucking feelings about how recently this right has been won in the places it has been, my dudes. and feelings about gender, and the shocking power of words

Billy frowns at the mirror and tugs at the dress again, adjusting how it sits over his taped and padded chest fretfully. He’d thought the little window on the sternum looked great in the store, but suddenly now it’s go-time, and it looks horribly tacky.

“Nobody’s gonna buy this, baby. _Look_ at me,” he complains, eyes drawn once again to where he cut his leg shaving this morning, obvious to him even if Steve had insisted he could barely see it.

“Billy, you’re gorgeous. Relax,” Steve assures him, coming over to rest his chin on Billy’s bare shoulder and kiss vaguely into his messy curls, and something about it works. Slows his beating heart just a little. “You’ve done this before, going out, and nobody’s ever batted an eye,” Steve points out, though, and Billy has to roll his eyes.

“Yeah, at _gay clubs_ ,” he sighs, swatting roaming hands away from his carefully tucked-back dick. “It’s different when it’s in broad fucking daylight. Next to a line of _real_ blushing brides I’m going to look _ridiculous_.”

“Who says you’re not a real blushing bride, huh?” Steve hums, picking up on the last part of that sentence Billy had meant him to and pulling him closer. “Bet _I_ can make you blush, baby,” he breathes, nibbling Billy’s pierced ear where Steve’s mom’s “misplaced” diamond earring dangles.

And the color does rise in Billy’s cheeks at that, but he’s still not satisfied.

Shoving his way out of Steve’s arms, Billy leans in to scrutinize his makeup in the mirror once again. He’d spent hours perfecting the look. A subtly pigmented blue eyeshadow, mascara that makes his eyes look especially wild right now, and a red enough lip to hopefully balance out the squareness of his jaw.

Billy reaches behind him to grab for Steve’s left hand and squeezes tight, pulling him close again. Just as he’s been for years now, Steve’s wrapped around him in an instant and Billy feels reassured without words.

“You really think this’ll work?” His voice is small when he asks it, probably because the weight of the question itself is crushing it. Because of course he’s still worried the fucking _doorman_ at the county clerk’s office is going to catch on and turn them away for the faggots that they are, but also that’s not nearly the half of it.

Underneath all the worries that Billy - for all his embracing of femininity in the past few years and for all Steve’s appreciation of it - will be found out by one stupid little thing like an earring or an inflection or the telling way he fucking sits... Billy just wants to know it’s all worth it. That Steve won’t leave him as soon as he finds a real girl who likes dick as much as Billy does, or as soon as money gets tight, or maybe just when he realizes that marriage or not, Billy can never give him a family all of their own.

Steve’s arms tighten around the illusion of Billy’s thin waist and his lips press against Billy’s neck for a long moment before he nods and smiles softly at Billy in the mirror.

“I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with you, baby,” he promises with a smirk and another kiss. “So can we get a move on now? Or are you going to keep me waiting forever?”

Billy bites the inside of his lip to stop himself from grinning like an idiot, and gives Steve’s shoulder a shove, turning to head for the front door. He tosses the thick lacy shawl they’d thrifted over his shoulders, obscuring them and his upper arms.  _Enough_ , Steve had said _, that no one will notice._

Steve grins at the completed look, making Billy feel warm all over, and jangles the keys to the Camaro in his right hand.

"Let's go get hitched, baby."

They’d disagreed over who would drive earlier, but with Billy’s heels in play now he knows it’s better that Steve, in his sensible dress-shoes, take the wheel. On the way back home maybe Billy will drive, barefooted and happy and free, but for now he settles in the passenger side and sticks Soundgarden in the tape deck for something loud that’ll calm his stupid nerves.

Steve doesn’t even complain, instead reaching over to put a hand on Billy’s knee like he _knows_ , which is just one of the most ridiculous things Billy’s ever thought in his lifetime. The idea that someone like _Steve_ would bother to know him that fucking well, and _care..._

He slips his hand over Steve’s and entwines their fingers tightly as they drive, and jogs his knee to the beat of the music _._

Billy is nervous the whole time they’re in the small, government office. When they take the doctored birth certificate that calls him Billie Argrove, calls him F for female, claims he was born in Los Angeles rather than Santa Maria  _just_ _in case_.

The people with their eyes on him must take it for wedding nerves, and see Steve’s hand on his waist as _gentlemanly_ or _chivalrous_ rather than just the polite _calm the hell down, asshole_ Billy knows it to really be. Something about that gets on his frayed nerves. He’s never been on this side of femininity before, and this is some fucking way to start it. Getting _you poor frail thing_ looks on his fucking wedding day.

He feels too cagey to even enjoy it when Steve kisses him openly while they wait their turn. And then suddenly it _is_ their turn and the words are so distant from him, so official sounding and dull, words about Husband and Wife and _Family_.

Billy recites the bits the government official asks him to while oggling his chest, and stares into Steve’s eyes while he recites his, feeling safe at least in them, feeling warm where their hands touch.

Rings aren’t exchanged, because they aren’t _made_ of money and Billy’d suggested they figure out something for that part after, anyway, when they’re not standing under the glaring eyes of Johnny Law, and Billy couldn’t be more relieved for that when the time for it comes. Because although the man doing the ceremony with them seems to judge Steve for it harshly, Steve handles it like a pro and in the end it gets them out of that stuffy fucking place half a minute earlier.

 _Married_. Billy repeats the word in his head, wondering if that’ll make it sink in. _I’m married._

But something about it feels off, anyway, as Steve tugs him across the street to the little sandwich shop and orders their favorites, holding his hand the whole time, kissing his neck in line. Of course, Steve notices that something’s off, but he doesn’t bother Billy to speak up about it until they’ve found a seat in the corner, food and drink in front of them, hands touching across the small table.

“You aren’t getting cold feet, are you?” he asks first, and Billy could kick himself if he were any good for kicking in these shoes.

“Of course not,” he promises, squeezing Steve’s hand, giving it a kiss and him a little smile.

Steve nods and grins back for a second.

“But you aren’t happy, either,” he surmises, and well, Billy can’t really deny that, can he. He doesn’t even have an appetite for pastrami right now. Clearly he’s not the glowing newlywed he’d imagined that he’d be.

Billy sets his hands out on the table for Steve to take, and takes a deep breath, trying to find the words. He thinks.

“It feels like… you just married some made-up woman,” he says stupidly, obviously. His voice is quiet, but nowhere near the attempt at feminine he’d used inside the clerk’s office. “And I might not be a _man_ , or whatever...”

He shrugs, and glances back up to meet those deep brown eyes he fell in love with years ago.

“But going out dressed like this around people who know feels so _different_  from being out here right now. Like... that felt like watching you marry some other girl, while I just stood there watching.”

There are tears welling in his eyes before he knows it, and Billy’s chest feels tight in a way that has little to do with all the shit strapped around it to make him look busty. But he’s not alone when the wet slips to his cheek. Steve pulls him close in an instant, and wipes his eyes carefully, kisses him soft.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I’m sorry,” Steve whispers as he comforts him. And for a moment they just sit like that, Steve’s body and his words loosening the knot in Billy’s stomach until he can sit back a little and Steve can wipe away the streaks of mascara running down his powdered cheeks. _Fuck_.

Only then does Steve try to meet his eye and answer Billy’s aimless complaints earnestly, always the problem-solver when he can be.

“Since I met you I haven’t wanted to marry anybody else but you, Billy Har-- William T. Harrington.”

Billy can’t help the little smile at that, and Steve grins at him too. Now _that’s_ a little giddying.

“Someday, somewhere, the world is gonna change and on that day I’m gonna marry you _properly_ ,” Steve proposes, and while no part of Billy truly believes the truth of that optimism, it warms his heart anyway. The idea that someday they could be this open in public without him dressed to the nines, some day when they're old. “We’ll move to Timbuktu if we have to. The first country that makes it legal, I swear.”

Billy smiles weakly and nods, then gasps a bit when Steve tugs him a little closer by his shawl, partially baring his shoulders.

“But for now,” he suggests, “what do you way we go consummate this thing, Mr. Harrington?”

And Billy has to admit, with Steve’s voice dropping low like that against his ear, he can’t think of a better idea than that.

**Author's Note:**

> for anyone interested, Billy's wearing something akin to [this dress](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e2/36/dd/e236dd6740d21f93a60ac60a8db1e670.jpg), and [this shawl](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/8c/27/15/8c271579b08567d7352e8084295c64ae--lace-shawls-piano.jpg).


End file.
